"Commentary: Just hire a lackey and get it over with"

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Commentary
MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Just hire a lackey and get it over with
BY CARL HIAASEN
The Miami (FL) Herald


HELP WANTED: Experienced aviation director for major international airport.
Lack of assertiveness is essential. Independent and creative thinkers need
not apply. Applicants must be willing to discard all sound management
practices, prudent fiscal policies and proven accountability paradigms. Also
must be willing to show slavish deference toward meddling politicians,
money-grubbing lobbyists and others who know absolutely nothing about
running a commercial airport. Annual salary is $218,000 plus benefits, which
include long-term psychiatric counseling.

The only surprise about Angela Gittens' resignation as Miami-Dade aviation
director was that she lasted so long. Nobody expected her to hang on for
three years, considering the less than-lukewarm welcome she received when
hired in 2001 by then-County Manager Merrett Stierheim.

Her stated aim was to clean up and ''professionalize'' Miami International
Airport, which can never happen as long as it's controlled by county
commissioners and the lobbyists who own them.

Scandal-ridden and disorderly, MIA at that time was rated one of the worst
airports in the United States. Travelers found their reception indifferent
to the point of hostile.

Not much has changed, although Gittens tried. The challenge became much more
difficult after 9/11, when government-ordered security precautions
transformed the airport experience forever.

Gittens had arrived in Miami after holding the top post at Atlanta's
Hartsfield International, where she had a reputation for independence and
candor -- and efficiency.

On paper that should have disqualified her from the MIA job. Commissioners
surely would have preferred a dimwitted stooge over somebody with actual
goals and ideas.

Mayor Alex Penelas, whose cronies are among the airport's most aggressive
looters, opposed Gittens and offered a candidate of his own.

Gittens got hired anyway, thanks to pressure from business leaders and the
public. Even the most fog-headed of commissioners realized voters were
disgusted by the circus at MIA.

The futility of Gittens' mission was plain to anyone who knows how MIA
works. It's basically a money pit where political favors, and private
fortunes, are ladled out like gravy.

Most lucrative vendor contracts must be approved by the County Commission.
As a result, companies hoping to do business at MIA must first hire
lobbyists who are politically connected to the commission.

In return for delivering the votes, lobbyists often take a juicy slice of
the vendor's future profits at MIA. Occasionally they even force the firm to
take on deadbeat pals of the politicians as ''partners'' in the enterprise.

Many respectable franchises do not wish to be ripped off so blatantly.
Consequently, contracts have often been awarded to slackers, insiders and
incompetents, a fact reflected in the dismal MIA passenger surveys.

Early on, Gittens got in hot water for criticizing the influence of
lobbyists. She openly advocated the creation of an independent airport
authority to handle the contracts.

That wasn't a radical new concept -- it had been strongly supported by civic
leaders.

However, there was zero chance that county commissioners would voluntarily
give up their greedy grip on MIA. Gittens won no new allies there by taking
a stand.

Her frankness, tactful or not, is what cost her the director's job. Last
summer she clashed with American Airlines, the big dog at MIA, over its
request for an extra $66 million in public funds to complete its late and
over budget North Terminal.

That Gittens' days were dwindling was obvious when County Manager George
Burgess, who owes his job to the county mayor and commission, put her on a
probationary ''management watch'' in June.

Then, last month, Burgess abruptly removed Gittens from overseeing MIA's
$4.8 billion capital improvement project. Her resignation on Nov. 5 shocked
no one. ''Politics were not involved in this move,'' Burgess insisted,
insulting the intelligence of every Miami-Dade resident.

As long as politicians are in charge, scandals are inevitable at the airport
known among veteran travelers as Miami International Armpit.

Where else would Richard Caride, a convicted murderer and infamous
home-invasion robber, be put in charge of the fuel farm? When he was
indicted in July for allegedly stealing and reselling jet fuel, how could
anyone be truly stunned that a fellow defendant in the racketeering case was
a well-known lobbyist? (Antonio Junior, a pal to County Commission
Chairwoman Barbara Carey-Shuler and others, has not entered a plea yet.)
Ironically, it was Gittens who tipped investigators to the fuel scam, thus
generating one more seedy headline for MIA.

She will leave a mark, though. Because of her efforts, national chain stores
and restaurants that had avoided the Miami airport will soon be bidding for
space there. That they'll be shaken down by someone in the process is a
foregone conclusion. The obligatory ''national search'' will be conducted
for Gittens' replacement, but don't expect a stampede of top-flight
applicants. After everything that's happened, only a fool, a masochist or an
aspiring embezzler would want the MIA job.


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